


Violin Strings

by CrumblingAsh



Series: Fragile Things [4]
Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Break Up, Post-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:40:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1266949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had just never thought that she would be the reason to end it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Violin Strings

* * *

 

It’s to his face, because he deserves no less and she deserves no better.

 

Pepper has known Tony Stark for eleven years. She has lived the same life as him, experienced the same annoyances, the same anger, the same pain and betrayal and desperation slashed across his skin – she has been breathing his air every morning and every night, wrapped around him both metaphorically and physically, relishing in the difference of his energy and the light it still fires in her own. She has seen his shadows, heard the truth of rumors – the darkness in his eyes at the glint of old pictures and the freezing smiles at the tendrils of old words. She knows him – she loves him.

 

He loves her. She knows this without doubt – Tony Stark is selfish and self-serving and self-absorbed, but he would cut his own spine from his body, nerve by nerve, with his own hands for her.

 

And she knows she wouldn’t do the same.

 

A missed call with no message – the anger that had raged inside of her had abruptly died away when the person responsible for it met her at the tarmac, a little broken and a little lost looking and a little more _alive_ than the days, weeks, months before, and she had known then. Tony is the star inferno at the center of the galaxy, fresh and beautiful and bright, and she had just wanted to be bathed in the fire his gifted hands spread so easily, no matter the burn. And she had known, then, at the start, that they would burn, and whatever had flared between them would explode and end.

 

She had just never thought that she would be the reason to end it.

 

The lights in the room are dim, dimming further as her words leave her mouth until they are nothing more than sparks of dying stars on the black marble of the floor. She sees Tony and the paleness of his face lose more color than it can afford, the way his hands shake even as he shoves them into the pockets of his ratted jeans. She can see the clench of his jaw, the harsh bob of his throat, and her gut burns even as she keeps talking, tells him this is over (because it's her, that's burning him).

 

It’s to his face because so much has been behind his back, over his head, days past before he’s been made aware. It’s to his face so she can see the cracks she makes, so she can watch his mask fall into place before he shatters. So that she can feel the numb gravity as he nods, curt, eyes of iron as he doesn’t follow her to the elevator.

 

“You deserve better,” she finishes firmly, “than me.” The words taste as cold as the metal surrounding her.

 

The doors slide shut, his soft, anguished “there is no one better” a slivered, low chord of accompaniment as he disappears in place of her own reflection.

 

With JARVIS watching, she waits until she’s in the car, away from the tower, to let the tears searing her eyes fall.


End file.
